my heart is a garden the world will never get to see
by The Crownless Queen
Summary: Edgar Bones, and the things he loved. AU-ish.


This was written for the Quidditch League, Round 4: Forgotten Families, Chaser 2 for the Arrows, writing about the Boneses using the prompts: (word) rare, (dialogue) "Could you be happy here with me?" , (scenario) a character is granted three wishes.

Seeing as a lot of the Boneses never got a name, I chose Jonathan and Calliope for Amelia's parents, and Edmund for Amelia and Edgar's brother (aka Susan's father), and I made Edgar the eldest.

Thanks for my teammates for being so supportive and amazing, and for all the beating!

 _Word count:_ 2996

 **my heart is a garden the world will never get to see**

Edgar wasn't sure what had woken him up, but once he was awake, he couldn't seem to fall back to sleep. His room was too cold, his bed too warm, and his throat was parched. Also, he needed to go to the bathroom. Luckily, he had a self-lighting candle for these occasions, and he grabbed it, before slipping out of his bedroom silently.

The hallways of the Bones Manor were dark and lonely at night, the few portraits that hang on the walls fast asleep, and his candle cast odd shadows around him.

It took him a while to realize that the hushed sounds he heard weren't simply the fruit of his overactive imagination but were in fact his parents' voices, arguing in their bedroom. The door was slightly ajar, just enough for a sliver of warm light to slip out, and for the voices to carry.

"Jonathan, come on, you know this isn't your fault-I'm the one who can't give you what you want. Me and my stupid body!"

Edgar froze in place, breath caught in his chest. He didn't need to look to know that his mother was in tears now. He recognized that tone of voice only too well-unfortunately, he had heard it many times over the last year, and he was, as always, at a loss as to what to do.

As Edgar's mind sped away in panic, his father spoke, voice full of pained desperation.

"No, no, Calliope, don't say that." A pause followed, during which Edgar could just imagine his father's face as he gathered his wife in his arms. "If you say I'm not to blame, then it's not your fault either, you hear me? It's just, just bad luck."

"I-I know," Calliope answered, "but… I just wish…"

"I know," Jonathan replied soothingly, "I do too. But we can't."

Calliope laughed. It wasn't a happy sound. "You shouldn't have used your last wish on me," she said. "You should have saved it for something else, for something more important. Edgar-" she choked on her words "-Edgar would have been fine, you could have found someone else, someone who could give you the family you deserve."

" _You_ 're the family I deserve! And if you think our son would have been fine with never knowing his mother, clearly you haven't been paying attention to how much he idolizes you. Merlin, Calliope, I would give up a thousand wishes just to have you stand by my side for the rest of my life, however long that may be. You have to know that," he pleaded.

Edgar was starting to feel really uncomfortable, but he didn't dare move and interrupt the moment, not when he was finally finding out _why_ his mother was so sad all the time and his father so lost.

"Come on," he was continuing, "we have a beautiful son, and he is more than enough for me. Do I wish we could have more kids, that we could fill this house with laughter like we planned to? Of course. But, Calliope, you have to know that you're the only one I would ever want to have this with."

"Oh, shut up, you big sap, you're making me cry," Calliope laughed.

"Only if you agree to get this idea that we'd be better off without you out of your head," he replied sternly. "Because we wouldn't be."

"I-I promise I'll try, how's that?"

Jonathan sighed. "I guess it'll have to do."

Edgar backed away quickly after that—he was rather sure he didn't want to hear what happened next.

His wrist tingled all the way back to his room, water forgotten, but he only dared to look at it once he was back in the safety of his bed. Under the thick leather band, it looked the same as always, even though Edgar had kind of expected it to have changed. He knew it wouldn't have, not yet, but still, from the tingling he had felt he had thought at least something would have changed. But no, nothing.

Well, nothing _yet_.

He couldn't sleep, not with his parents' words echoing in his mind. Not knowing he could do something to help.

"I wish," he said, before stopping and licking his lips. In the darkness, his words felt oddly powerful, almost seemed as though their inherent magic was weighing on him. "I wish," he repeated, "that my parents could have other kids."

He wasn't sure what to expect—thunder, lightning maybe, or something equally dramatic—but none of that happened. Instead, his wrist warmed, and right before his eyes, one of the three dark seeds slowly bloomed, unfurling up to his elbow in thin green vines.

He fell asleep with a smile on his lips, knowing it had worked.

 **.x.**

The seeds were something every wizarding child was born with. Three seeds, placed on the dominant wrist, to represent the three wishes their magic could grant. Most used them during their childhoods, as a thoughtless _'I wish I had ice-cream'_ was enough to use up one request. It was very rare for muggleborns to have any wish left by the time they started Hogwarts for that very reason, and though in reality the same was true of wizard-raised children, in theory growing up in the magical world left one with a much greater appreciation and respect for the power of the words 'I wish' and how they shouldn't be used casually.

Wishes, Edgar knew, were Important with a capital I. Of course, they couldn't do _everything_ , but it was close enough that there were hundreds of stories of wizards and witches trying to recreate as adults the effects of wishes effortlessly granted during their childhoods.

Those stories rarely ended well, but they did make great cautionary tales.

But still, watching his parents' confusion melting into joy when they found out that Calliope, against all hope, was pregnant again, was more than worth the risk.

After that realization, it took two nights for Calliope to visit her son's bedroom. She was just barely beginning to show—and Merlin, she should have known earlier, there had been other signs, but she hadn't dared hope, not when it had supposedly been impossible—but she already felt different. Lighter, perhaps. Filled to the brim with some great and unknown energy, bursting with joy and pride.

"Thank you," she whispered to her son as she tucked him into bed. "Your father hasn't figured it out yet, but he's rather clever, you know. It's only a matter of time." She trailed a finger up the vine that marked Edgar's forearm, eyes soft.

Edgar blinked sleepily, yawning. "Will he be mad?"

"Mad?" Calliope asked, surprised yet amused. "Why would he be mad? No, he'd be just as proud and thankful as I am, alright?"

"So I did good?"

"Yeah, kid, you did good," she chuckled, heart unexpectedly tight in her chest. "The best, even."

Edgar smiled widely, his grin promptly stretching into another yawn.

Calliope chuckled again. "I should let you sleep," she said, kissing his forehead lightly. "Good night, Edgar."

"'Night, Mother," he mumbled back. He was asleep before his mother had left the room.

 **.x.**

At age six, Edgar got a little sister, Amelia. She was ugly and she screamed _all the time_ , but the moment his smiling mother put her in his arm and told him, "You're a big brother now, you have to take care of her.", something warm and soft swelled in his chest.

She grew up impossibly fast, it seemed, though at first it had seemed to take forever.

"When will she play with me?" Edgar had asked his parents intently more than once, to which they always answered, laughing, "Not yet, Edgar. Soon."

But once she started babbling, and wandering, nothing seemed to stop her. She too, had magic, as evidenced by the three closed seeds on her tiny right wrist, barely bigger than beauty marks, and once that manifested, it seemed like a storm had taken over the Manor.

Edgar loved it, and he took to his big brother duties with a solemnity that never failed to make his parents smile.

When she became old enough to appreciate them, he joined in with his parents to read Amelia bedtimes stories. After their parents left, they curled up together in her big bed.

"Why's wishing bad, Edgar?" Amelia asked.

Edgar startled. "Why do you think wishing is bad?"

"Well, no one does it, and Mother said I shouldn't ever do it unless I really wanted to." She pouted, and Edgar had to bite back a smile lest his sister thought he was mocking her.

"That's because our wishes are magic," Edgar confessed, delighting in the way Amelia's eyes widened in wonder. "But only the first three you ever make, so Mother and Father don't want you to waste them."

He told her the stories then, of the vines that would grow on her skin until they reached her heart when the final wish was granted, of the tattooed seeds that would only bloom through a wish. He told her of the wizards who wished for too much or spent their luck too soon, of the countless lives wasted trying to recreate what had never meant to be recreated.

"And that's why we have to be careful," he finished.

Amelia nodded, eyes still wide but face serious. "Uh-uh," she said. And then, "Did you ever make a wish?"

The question was innocent, but Edgar shivered all the same, fingers reaching for his forearm. "I did, once," he admitted, throat tight.

Amelia's eyes, impossibly, seemed to widen even more. "Wow," she breathed.

Edgar smiled. "Yeah, it was pretty 'wow' indeed."

That wish had, after all, granted him a sister.

 **.x.**

Amelia tried, but by the time Edgar left for Hogwarts, she had used two of her three wishes.

By the time she went, she had used them all. Their little brother, growing up, would wish for a pet, the birthday presents he hadn't had and for his room to always be clean. Twin daisies bloomed over their hearts, and Edgar's heart ached at the thought of those wasted wishes.

No, not wasted—not when those wishes had made his family happy—but rather gambled away too quickly.

Edgar kept his two remaining wishes safe and hidden under glamor spells, pretending he had used them like everyone else had.

Sometimes, he wished he had.

Something, though, told him he'd need them soon enough.

 **.x.**

The war found Edgar the moment he left Hogwarts. Professor Dumbledore, who immediately insisted on being called 'Albus', personally came to recruit Edgar to fight against the Dark Lord and his followers.

Albus Dumbledore, it was said, still had one wish to use.

The Dark Lord, the rumors say, still had all of his.

Both men were larger than life, and though Edgar still had two wishes of his own, he couldn't imagine a world in which he'd think himself better for having that power at his fingertips.

"I'm no hero," he said.

"We don't need heroes," Dumbledore replied, eyes full of a sadness Edgar could only grasp the edges of. "We need good people, willing to stand for what's right."

And Edgar thought of his siblings—kind but stern Amelia, who wanted to make the world fair, and Edmund, who was bright but had yet to grow into his skin—and how next time this offer might go to them, and something in his chest crystallized, cold and sharp.

"I'm in."

 **.x.**

To tell the truth, it hadn't even really been a war at first, except maybe an ideological one. For years, Edgar had hoped that this would only ever be that, but as time passed it only got worse.

Files started disappearing, and then people, and before Edgar knew what had happened, he was spending his nights deflecting deadly spells and defending muggle towns.

He hated the fighting, but he was good at it. One of the best, even, Mad-Eye had said, and Edgar had laughed even as he felt like crying, because that was what he was supposed to do.

Sometimes, he wondered if it would have been different, had he been a Gryffindor instead of a Hufflepuff. Would he have loved the war then, loved the rush of adrenaline in his veins that made him feel invincible the way so many of his new 'friends' did?

He didn't think so, but it would certainly have made his life easier, and perhaps it would have made his siblings worry less too.

Because worry they did. Amelia had taken to ambushing him whenever they were both in the Ministry—she had started climbing up the ladder in the DMLE almost as soon as she had left Hogwarts, and Edgar wasn't ashamed to say that no matter how good he was, his little sister was a hundred times better.

"They're killing you," she said one day, lips pursed as she took in the slight trembling of Edgar's hands. The only times they stayed still, these days, were in the middle of a fight.

"I'm fine," Edgar replied.

Amelia didn't push, but Edgar could tell she didn't believe him. He wished she would, but he couldn't blame her, not when he didn't believe himself either.

"As long as you stay that way, then," she said.

"I'll do my best," Edgar promised. He hoped he hadn't just lied to his sister.

"I guess that's all I can ask for, isn't it?"

He took her hand in his, trying to convey the regret he was feeling. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It's not your fault. And… You'll look after Edmund, right?"

Edgar smiled sadly. "You know I will."

"I still can't believe he actually joined this Order of yours, though," she sighed.

"There was never going to be any stopping him," Edgar replied wryly. "He's…"

"Too much like his big brother?" Amelia suggested dryly.

"I was going to say ' _too much of a Gryffindor_ '," Edgar corrected, suddenly feeling exhausted. "I'm not a hero, Amelia. I just… This was something I had to do."

He didn't explain the terrible fear that had seized him when Dumbledore had first made his offer, how he had thought of a future where the siblings he had wished for would be living in a false utopia built on lies and blood. How he had joined not because he had believed in the cause—at least not the way he did now—but because he had to keep his family safe.

Somehow, Amelia seemed to understand it anyway, because her eyes softened.

"I understand."

She didn't, not really, and by Merlin, Edgar hoped she never would.

 **.x.**

It was easy to forget that Edgar still had two wishes left. He had hidden them for so long, had told everyone that they had been used so many times that he had somehow started believing it himself.

Maybe that was why, when the Death Eaters took him, Edgar didn't think to use his wishes until the third night, when they sent him back to is cell, broken and bleeding.

He laid there, collapsed on the cold stone floor, trying to piece back together his mind to figure out if he had given away anything important—please, let the tortured have failed one more time, _please_ —when something caught his eye, and he remembered.

 _Oh_ , he thought, the realization soft and warm amidst all the pain, and out loud he whispered, "I wish someone would rescue me now."

He had copper on his tongue and to many wounds to count, but he passed out with a smile on his face. On his wrist, a second seed opened and vines bloomed on his skin.

When he opened his eyes again, he was staring into a familiar face, red hair surrounding it like a fiery halo.

"Missed me?" Fabian Prewett asked, roguish grin on his lips. "You know, if you wanted out of our date you could have just said so, no need to go to such lengths, really."

And despite the gravity of the situation, Edgar laughed; the movement jostling his ribs painfully. "It wasn't a date," he protested half-heartedly.

"You asked him out for drinks, alone, on a Saturday night," Gideon, Fabian's twin, interjected. "You even told me not to show up—sounds like a date to me. And don't think I never saw you making eyes at my brother before."

"Well, I am the better-looking twin," Fabian replied, winking.

"Come on, guys, less chatting, more getting the hell out of here," Dorcas yelled from the other end of the hallway, ducking under a spell and sending another right back. In the distance, someone screamed, and Edgar winced.

"Yes, ma'am," the twins answered in sync. They really were quite a sight in a fight—Gideon was ruthless, but Fabian was creative. Together, they were unstoppable, and just having them around made Edgar feel safer.

The fighting died down quickly, Edgar still too out of it to really follow much of what was going on. He went where he was guided, and before he knew it, he felt the familiar twisted hook taking hold of his navel and bringing him along as someone pressed an old cloth in his hand.

"For the record?" Fabian said while Edgar was carted off to St Mungo's later on. "That was the worst first date ever."

"I'll make it up to you," Edgar promised. "But hey, at least it wasn't boring, right?"

Fabian laughed. "That it wasn't."

 **.x.**

They went on one date, then two and then so many more they stopped counting.

One day, Fabian asked, "Could you be happy here with me?", and Edgar thought about the war outside their house, how they had to fight and could die any day, and hos he'd probably never learn not to worry about the people he loved.

It wasn't a hard choice to make.

"I wish," he said, and smiled into a kiss as a flower bloomed on his chest. "I wish."


End file.
